


Fundamental Forces (or, Root Causes)

by pinehutch



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: Excessive Drinking, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fluff and Humor, Kirkwall (Dragon Age), Minor Original Character(s), Mutual Pining, Post-Dragon Age: Inquisition, Turnips, emotional dishonesty, eventual emotional honesty, originally written for Hightown Funk 2017, repost of an orphaned work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-05
Updated: 2020-07-05
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:01:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25081291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinehutch/pseuds/pinehutch
Summary: Hawke is in Kirkwall in the post-Inquisition, pre-Trespasser world. She installs herself at Viscount's Keep with Varric and accidentally almost marries him off.
Relationships: Female Hawke/Varric Tethras
Comments: 13
Kudos: 48





	Fundamental Forces (or, Root Causes)

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally posted for the [Hightown Funk 2017 Exchange](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/hightownfunk2017), as a gift for/based on a prompt by [3HobbitsInATrenchcoat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/3HobbitsInATrenchcoat/profile). It was the first piece of fanfic I ever really wrote, much less finished or posted, and on an account that I've since deleted.
> 
> Writing this one fic was the quiet beginning of me reconnecting with writing, after having left it alone for most of the previous 10 years. I suppose I'm feeling sentimental about it, four summers on. 
> 
> The original, orphaned work is still posted [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11642088). I've made only a few changes: some typos I missed the first time, mostly, and the tiniest number of wording tweaks. There are lots of things about this fic that I would do differently now, but it's still nice to see how I did things then.

It was almost absurdly easy, the way it happened. It was, easily, absurd.

* * *

One afternoon, Kirkwall summer heavy and ripe, Varric walked into his sitting room and Hawke was standing there. Larger than life, but somehow smaller than he remembered.

Her hands were full of embarrassing letters. The unwed women of the Free Marches were becoming unnervingly blunt in their desire to marry the newly-elected Viscount of Kirkwall. Some of them were half his age (or less, if he was being honest, which was a habit he continued to avoid whenever possible).

Hawke thought this was hilarious. She said so, loudly and at length, as she folded herself into his best armchair and made an evening’s work of his brandy. “Honestly, Varric. Lucinde Trevelyan is no more than 19 years old. Perhaps she has a friend who’d like to ‘make the acquaintance of such a celebrated man in such a celebrated city’ as well, then they’d almost be a match for you together!” It was a terrible joke, and Varric refused to laugh at it on principle, but he could still play along.

“Bring it on, Hawke! Actually, maybe add another one — I get pretty chilly in my old age.” 

They dropped the subject after that, and Varric pulled stories out of Hawke about Weisshaupt, and the Wardens, and the wonders she had seen there. She did very little without entangling herself in either a farce or a legend.

Later on, the brandy turned into whisky, and even later the birds were starting to sing. Varric helped Hawke stumble to a guest suite, having dismissed his page some hours ago. His hand was on her lower back, her skin hot even in the all-too-brief cool of the dawn. He turned to leave when she hit the mattress but stopped when she sat back up and fixed him with the too-serious stare of the utterly inebriated.

“Varric,” she said. “Please don’t marry a nineteen year old.” Her eyes were wide, wider than the hour and the drink should have permitted, and she looked as earnest as he had ever seen her. He touched her on the jaw. “Okay, Chuckles, if you insist.” She smiled and lay down, her eyes closing right away.

He was halfway across the room when she snickered and, with a slur, pronounced “you may marry no fewer than two nineteen-year-olds. To keep it fair.”

With that, she was asleep.

* * *

Evidently the Champion of Kirkwall intended to squat in the Viscount’s Keep. Her estate in Hightown was too full of excuses to return: it was liable to be musty, or dusty, or full of vermin, or not full of food and wine, and there were probably bandits or ghosts. Varric reassured her that this was not the case, that none of these cases were the case, but she was disinclined to listen.

Seneschal Bran Cavin insisted that the Hawke estate was in perfect repair, clean, breezy, and replete with both food and beverages, but Hawke still refused to go home. When she asked him if it would truly be so terrible for her to stay, Bran reluctantly admitted that there was historical precedent for the Champion to have a suite of rooms at the Viscount’s Keep. He less-reluctantly described this precedent to her in great historical detail. Hawke accepted that listening to Bran for five uninterrupted minutes was the cost of her lodgings, and then it was done.

She had already found a spot for her boots, and the wardrobes of the guest suite were filling up with eccentric new robes. She spent her mornings on her own, afternoons planning with Bran and Varric about where the Champion could show up next to help bolster public interest in reconstruction efforts, and her evenings in Varric’s private sitting room.

Sometimes she read salacious novels, while he pored over contracts or muttered curses over letters of dispute. Sometimes he would read her a few pages of the newest book, the one about the Inquisition, and she’d let herself get comfortable in the sound of his voice. She helped with his correspondence on occasion, which mostly meant leafing through his mail in search of the most amusing or obnoxious letters. (The proposals continued, her laughter higher, brighter, louder, with each one.) Aveline and Donnic came for a game of Wicked Grace, but that became too nostalgic and too sad too quickly, and then they all drank too much and Hawke added two more people to the short list of those who knew what she had seen in the years since Anders had catalysed centuries of oppression and aggression and resentment into a war.

No one tried to kill her for weeks at a time, and not a single beast of legend had ventured into the audience chamber. As often as not, she fell asleep in an overstuffed chair and would be woken up by a broad, steady hand on her arm, her shoulder, her hair. She would not admit it for anything, but it was nice. Pleasant. Domestic.

And so it was that the Champion of Kirkwall settled into the Viscount’s Keep, and so it was that she also began to be bored.

* * *

Nature abhors a vacuum. She remembered Dorian Pavus saying this in a sleepy farmer’s field near Crestwood. He began to try to explain, his theoretical understanding of the forces of her magic as far beyond hers as the stars were beyond the moons. Then they were set upon by bandits and by the time she remembered to ask him to finish his lecture she was plummeting into the Abyssal Rift. It didn’t come up again.

Still, she liked the phrase. It was applicable in countless situations. If she was hungry, well. Nature abhors a vacuum. If her tunics were piled concerningly high on a chair in her rooms, it was only an expression of a fundamental law of reality. As a maxim, it had a scale to it that she found appealing; Hawke had spent an awful lot of time dealing with the crises of the present moment, both big and small. Opportunities to look at the Big Picture that people liked to go on about were limited. She attributed this to the fact that she, like nature, abhorred a vacuum, any kind of silence, and it was reassuring to attribute her tendency towards chaos to natural law.

It could be argued, then, that it was neither by design nor through negligence that Hawke left some of Varric’s most uproariously funny correspondence from the hopeful and unwed of Thedas in the tray he kept at the edge of his desk for “shit other people should take care of.” It was simply that nature had noticed a bit of empty space in the vicinity of her agent, Hawke, and had moved to let something new rush in.

(It was entirely by design that the young page, Tarn, brought the letters in that tray to Seneschal Bran. It had been impressed upon Tarn from the outset that he should move any item that the Viscount was “disinclined to action” from that tray to the one on the Seneschal’s own desk as quickly as possible. The Seneschal was always pleased to see that his training of the page had been successful, and a corner of his mouth lifted whenever he saw items in his correspondence tray. If he felt the same sense of quiet pleasure when he took in the contents of the day’s correspondence, it was only professional pride that the Viscount-elect had placed such trust in him.)

* * *

Hawke had seen Varric in all of his moods, but this may have been the first time she had actually seen him at the moment that pants-shittingly-terrified and crossbow-brandishingly-angry had collided with head-in-hands-ironic laughter. It was actually quite satisfying. She supposed she liked novelty, and this was a new look for one of her oldest friends.

“I’m sorry, Bran. Could you repeat that? My ears must be full of nugshit this morning, because that’s what I just heard come out of your mouth.”

Bran looked beautifully confused and more than a little crestfallen. Hawke almost felt bad for him as he tried to salvage something from this. “Serah. Viscount. You must understand, the letter was placed in my tray. I could only assume that you had meant it to find its way to me for action. The page is extremely capable and would never — ” he paused, for a split second, half of a realization on his face, and Hawke knew that she’d been made.

In the next moment she knew that he would never tell. He wanted this, so he continued “and would never touch any of your personal matters outside of those which he is permitted. Perhaps it became mixed in with another missive? You and the Champion were applying a great deal of scrutiny to that investment opportunity in Ferelden. The hardier, hybrid turnips?”

Varric snorted and Hawke laughed, and Bran smiled the faint smile of bureaucrats who have averted political incidents. “Fine,” grumbled Varric, “fine. Let them come and introduce their ‘most beloved and virtuous daughter of the House of Kenric’ to me and to Kirkwall. You can even make a big deal out of it.”

Bran was genuinely excited. In the space of two minutes he had sketched out an itinerary, including a feast, a masque after the Orlesian style, and a tour of the improvements that Varric had made to Kirkwall. Varric appeared to already regret his decision to allow himself to be courted by Starkhaven nobility anxious to make alliances, but beyond muttering about “ridiculous noble rituals” and “frankly creepy parents trying to marry off their children to people old enough to be their fathers,” he said little. Hawke felt a strange twisting in the pit of her stomach and was quiet. Perhaps there was something in the tea that didn’t agree with her. She would have to stick to brandy, she supposed.

The Seneschal called his page, who seemed both guilty and responsive enough to have been listening outside the door this whole time. Varric called after them. “Bran? Do me a favour? If the Kenrics will be here for ten days, can you wait until they’ve arrived and settled in to announce the visit? I’d rather not have to explain to my old friend, Their Inquisitorialness, why I’m meeting this girl and not the Trevelyan one until it’s already too late for surprise guests from Ostwick.” The Seneschal’s eyebrows rose, but he nodded and closed the door behind him.

Hawke had a glass of brandy at her lips when Varric opened the door, peeked around it, and then shut it again. She had been unusually quiet, preferring to take in the almost painfully funny situation that was unravelling here. Really actually quite painfully funny. She could just imagine the young Kenric, petite and rosy-cheeked and auburn-haired no doubt, sweet and with a lilting laugh. She would probably benefit from having someone like Varric look after her, just like he used to take care of Merrill, of Anders, of all of them. And it might help build a bridge back to Starkhaven; he had told her, late one night, that he didn’t know when he would be able to visit Starkhaven as he had no desire to commit regicide so early in his time as a Viscount.

Yes, it would be a good match. She supposed she would have to smuggle some of Varric’s brandy with her when she moved back out of the Keep. It was terribly drinkable stuff, though it didn’t seem to help her stomach at all.

Varric poured himself a drink and sat down in an armchair. For all of his silver tongue and golden laugh, he could be so quiet sometimes, quiet as stone. This was one of those times, and Hawke likely sprained something in her face grinning at him until he took notice. “Terribly sorry, Varric. It seems as though our business trip to look into these hybrid turnips will have to wait.” He grinned, then, not his private and wistful smile but at least a genuine rogue’s grin, and cocked his head to the side.

“Shit, the turnips! Seems as good a reason as any to call the whole visit off, doesn’t it? ‘Dear Kenrics, it is with a heavy heart that I must delay our introductions. Alas, I have urgent matters to attend to in Ferelden: there is a hardier, hybrid turnip that will wait for me no longer.’ Do you think they’ll buy it? I’m not ready to settle down and adopt a daughter.”

They fell apart laughing at that, and then came up with three different plans to sabotage a banquet (turnips featured prominently in each of these). Hawke had no expectation that Varric would follow through with it, as he was regrettably decent sometimes, but it kept her from feeling as though there was a vacuum nearby that she needed to abhor.

She was distracted enough not to notice when Varric grew a bit quieter, and let her do all of the scheming. If his eyes were resting on her, that was hardly unusual and she had had years upon years to get used to the weight of his gaze, his consideration.

* * *

The Kenric visit to Kirkwall started splendidly. Lord and Lady Kenric were gracious without being utterly dull, and young Annabel was lovely, charming, clever and actually quite funny. They visited the harbour, construction hardly keeping up with the pace of trade, and they saw the bustling marketplaces of Hightown. They made sure to convey their regret for Prince Vael’s misguided attempts to ‘bring order’ to Kirkwall in the earlier part of the decade, and were suitably impressed with the foundations of the new Chantry. Annabel in particular had been excited to meet Hawke, having read the Tale of the Champion repeatedly as a younger girl, and Hawke did not disappoint. She joked and winked and sauntered on their walks through the city, moving with the kind of freedom that was natural to her and so alien to most young noblewomen. She sneaked Annabel to the stalls of merchants that sold sweets and spirits, and once lit a fire with the snap of her fingers. She knew everyone by name, drank whisky neat, and even showed her the Hawke estate, citing repairs and implying ghosts as the reason she was staying at the Keep. After four days it was apparent to Varric at least that the most beautiful and virtuous daughter of House Kenric was wholly star-struck and at least half in love with his best friend, but he himself was still of keen interest to the parents.

Lord and Lady Kenric were avid hunters, and Bran arranged a hunt for them on their fifth day to get them out of Kirkwall’s summer heat and into the fresh air of the mountain. Varric cited a dwarf’s aversion to riding and caught up with some of his own papers that day. He had assumed that Hawke would go with them — she could be as bad as he was when it came to enjoying an audience — but instead he found her in his sitting room, asleep in a chair in her leathers in the middle of the afternoon.

Unwilling to wake her, he wrote a quick note and set it beneath the mug of tea gone cold at her side.

* * *

Hawke woke late in the afternoon, stiff and disoriented. All of this exposure to youthful exuberance had drained her; Annabel was truly a dear girl and Hawke was growing fond of her, but Kirkwall’s most well-known daughter was closer in age to forty than to Annabel’s twenty and she could admit, in absolute secrecy, that she was still tired from the trip from the Anderfels. Or to the Anderfels, for that matter. Or to Adamant. Or to Kirkwall, pulled as if by a fundamental force into her own destiny.

Still, tiredness was no excuse for boredom, so it was with no small delight that Hawke unfolded the parchment that had been neatly addressed to her.

_Chuckles -_

_Don’t forget that the banquet is tomorrow night. I need you there, you’ll be better entertainment than an Orlesian play. (Do you want to put odds on the elven characters dying in heroic service to the Empire? I’ll put down five gold that they do.) I think Annabel has forgotten that she’s supposed to be enticing me, not you, but her parents certainly won’t have, so we have to_ _look nice_ _and_ _be hospitable_ _for another few days._

_If this was too subtle for you, please take note of the underlined parts. I won’t ask you to use a special fork if you show up wearing something clean and without bloodstains._

_There is_ _I hope_ _I’m sure that Bran would be more than happy to direct you to a dressmaker. With very detailed directions, and a heavy purse of my money._

_Yrs,_

_V._

By the time she finished the letter, Hawke’s grin could have whittled down dragonbone. She understood two things in that moment.

The first thing was that she was being asked to put on a show for the Kenrics, to make the elite of Kirkwall seem like reasonable, ordinary people, the type that were attractive to potential allies from an otherwise somewhat hostile neighbouring kingdom.

The second thing was that Varric had asked her to wear a dress, which was both outrageous and uncomfortably thrilling, and she swore to get revenge by wearing the first and best dress she could think of.

She had a quick few words with Tarn the page, and then fairly ran down the halls to the Seneschal’s office. “Bran,” she ordered as she walked into the room. “I need someone who can make me look like a Void-blasted lady.”

She left a note in reply to Varric, and did not visit his sitting room that night.

_Trusty dwarf:_

_I’ll take those odds._

_MH._

* * *

The next two days passed quickly enough. Hawke endured seamstresses, who were somehow all both obsequious and condescending. Yes, the Champion knew that it was unusual to place such a specific order with such limited time, of course she did! The Champion was such a fine physical specimen (Hawke had rolled her eyes at that) that surely she was capable of staying still for a mere ten minutes while they finished measuring for alterations, was she not? While the Champion’s hair was of course smooth and shiny, it was such a pity that there wasn’t more of it to wrap up in an elegant coiffure.

It was frankly surprising that The Champion had managed not to knock anything over.

Varric had been a bit tense, in the way that he got when he was scheming a scheme that he had doubts about. He was also much more attentive to Hawke whenever the Kenrics were about. He told her favourite stories, and laughed louder at her jokes. His tunics were increasingly fine and well-cut, and he’d trimmed his hair but left his stubble. Age suited him, she decided, as did rulership.

Hawke dined with the household, and one night when she walked into the dining hall there was a bard there, singing a sad song of lost love that had been popular 15 years ago. Varric looked right at Hawke and smiled. “Just stuck in the past for a minute - fortunately, that’s all behind us now. I really prefer to live in the present.”

Annabel sighed the dreamy sigh of the young and sheltered, and Lord Kenric glared the keen glare of the shrewd. Hawke preferred to fight fire with fire (or awkwardness with more awkwardness) and fairly rushed to the table, where she immediately and loudly began lamenting the lost turnip stew of her rural Fereldan upbringing. Varric looked at her as though the sun itself shone forth from her countenance, and she dropped her utensils at least twice.

After the Kenrics retired for the evening Hawke was sitting in Varric’s former favourite chair, boots dangling off the armrest. They had played a few hands of Diamondback and had a very quiet conversation about where certain blond apostates might be, and then Hawke blurted out the question.

“Varric? What are you doing?”

“Hmm? Why, Hawke, I’m winning all of your hard-won gold in hand after hand of cards. I’m also keeping your glass topped up. Maybe too well.”

She nudged him with her foot. “You’re daft. And sneaky. I don’t mean either of those things, though I thank you to make sure my glass stays full. I mean,” she continued, drawing the word out “what are you doing with the Kenrics? And, um, me?”

He was shuffling the cards and didn’t falter at all. Instead, he looked at her and with a wink said “Why, Hawke, I’m only demonstrating my affection for my betrothed. Isn’t it obvious?”

Hawke narrowed her eyes. She was impulsive, quick to catch on, and happy to take an active role in preventing boredom or the accidental marriages of her friends to entirely unsuitable (though perfectly nice) young women. “I’m a decoy? Is that it?”

He shrugged and sat back. “Think about it from their perspective, Hawke. I’m over forty, I’m unmarried, I live with a beautiful and celebrated hero about whom I have literally written books. Clearly I’ve been pining for you since the Fifth Blight, but now things have changed, and that’s why I can’t marry Annabel, or any of the other daughters of the noble houses of Thedas.The story practically writes itself.”

He said it jokingly, and almost casually. He looked at her as if he’d just told her about an especially terrible tavern that he wanted to visit, as if he was about to sell someone an awful investment, as if they were both in on it the whole time. “I’m hoping to convince them that I’m off the market. I’ve been calling it Operation Hybrid Turnip.”

Hawke threw her head back laughing almost hard enough that she fell out of her chair. She swivelled around, refusing to sit upright, and hit Varric with what she knew to be her most devastating smirk. “Oh Varric. This is a truly ridiculous scheme, and I’m honoured to be a part of it.”

She dreamed that night about a dragon in flight, about the long fall into the Rift. She woke up with Dorian’s polished accent ringing in her ears, saying something about fundamental forces. She felt unsettled, inevitable, and a bit wild. It suited her.

* * *

Varric was nowhere to be found at breakfast, but there were flowers near her plate, and a sealed letter. She hid her eyes, hoping to appear more smitten than smiling, and broke the seal with her thumbnail.

_Fereldan Turnip and Barley Stew_

_One pound of turnips, peeled and diced_

_One pound of turnip greens_

_One cup of barley_

—

She refolded the letter and slipped it into a pocket. Lady Kenric was looking at her expectantly.

“Well,” Hawke said. “I may never be a lady, but perhaps I will neither be an old maid.” She then asked Annabel if she had ever seen a mage make tea, and ran off with her newly befriended young impressionable.

* * *

The Viscount found a similar letter on his desk that afternoon, this time sealed with the Amell crest. Shit, he thought, she still had that? He wondered if she thought about everything, the whole long story of her mother’s family, every time she sealed a letter.

He held the letter as if weighing it and then pried the seal clean off.

_Dearest,_

_I have found several titles that may be of merit to your collection. We shall make our fortune!_

_On the Varieties and Values of Turnips_

_Rutabaga, or the Tale of the Beggar on the Route_

_The Secret History of the Fereldan Frostback (The secret is turnips)_

_The Heart of the Garden: on the use of root vegetables in Avaar society_

_I can only hope that you find my words as sweet as fresh spring turnips, and as spicy as a firm winter root._

_M._

Varric laughed, quietly, until he cried.

* * *

Banquets were not Hawke’s favourite way to spend an evening — that usually included stronger drink and clearer odds — but they were all right, she supposed. There was good food in great quantity, music and other entertainment, and she did have an awful lot of people trying to get on her good side.

She liked when people tried to get on her good side. She felt there was still less of that than there could be, honestly, and she’d saved at least part of the world once or twice. 

Unfortunately, Lord and Lady Kenric were rapidly becoming disinterested in her good side. When Varric talked about the night the Red Templars had come over the hill at Haven, the Lady Kenric had exclaimed that it was truly awful to feel betrayed by a prospective ally, and Lord Kenric had nodded along, stating that he was certain that they would continue to count Kirkwall among their friends.

When he told some of his influential guests about what Corypheus had been, a chill fell over the room until Lord Kirkwall had asked “I’m not entirely clear on what your role was in resurrecting this monster, Champion?” Hawke replied in a voice that was sweet and even that she did kill the monster at least once, and had broken his thrall over the Grey Wardens besides.

Varric moved on to lighter material, and was telling the story of how he first met the Champion. This version was close enough to the truth, and popular with most crowds. Nobility enjoyed being reminded that the Champion had come to Kirkwall with only the clothes on her back and her family, and the lower classes liked to be reminded that the Champion had come to Kirkwall with only the clothes on her back and her family. The meal had not yet been served, and Lord Kenric had been determined to drink a dowry’s worth of wine that night, so it should not have surprised anyone that he didn’t care for the tale. “It speaks to your commitment to Kirkwall’s poor, Master Tethras, that you were so taken with a young woman when she was vulnerable, filthy, and destitute.”

Annabel, sweet soul that she was, gasped. “Da! Lord Tethras has shown us the proof of his good works in Kirkwall, and the Champion’s as well. Surely Lady Hawke doesn’t need to be reminded of her worst days?”

Hawke was moved by the words of the young girl from Starkhaven. She really was an awfully good young woman, and she would be a wonderful partner to someone other than Varric. She was clearly a positive influence as well, as the father bowed his head to the daughter and looked contrite. “You’re right as always, my heart. Your mother and I are so proud to have raised a young woman of your calibre.”

The pre-dinner conversationalists dispersed into other groups, Varric settling into a pace beside Hawke. “I think that nineteen-year-old just avoided a diplomatic incident,” he said. “Varric,” reminded Hawke. “She’s twenty.” (It was through no fault of Annabel’s that Hawke immediately regretted saying that, and it was through no fault of her own, she was sure, that she couldn’t precisely identify why.)

Varric offered his elbow as they were called to dinner, her hand as warm through his coat as if she had wrapped it in flame.

* * *

Varric made a speech that night, in honour of their guests from Starkhaven. It was neatly done, too: he praised the Lord and Lady Kenric, their warmth and good humour and successes, chief among which was their daughter. He spoke at length of the young woman’s wisdom, insight, kindness, and beauty, and when he sat down the girl was blushing and beaming and the centre of the room’s attention.

Most of the room. Hawke was looking at Varric but largely focused on the large nest of bees that had settled in her abdomen. Varric bowed, raised his glass, and sat down beside Hawke.

“Changed your mind, Varric?” Hawke’s voice was much higher than she remembered it being. Why did she sound like that? Perhaps someone should open a window.

“C’mon, Hawke, you know I only have eyes for you. That was a joke, by the way. Potatoes, turnips. Maybe not my best, but points for trying?”

“Ha ha,” she said. She made a point of not laughing at other people’s puns.

“Jealous?” He was grinning at her, a broad and unwholesome thing. She wondered if people could grin competitively. She intended to find out.

“Fiercely,” she jested back. “How could I survive without my trusty dwarf at my side? It would be a terrible emptiness, and you know that nature abhors a vacuum. I’d probably have to get a new dwarf. Maybe one with a Starkhaven accent, probably a bit younger.”

Varric looked nervous. “Knock it off, Chuckles. Someone will overhear, and that’ll just sabotage the whole operation.”

“Fine, fine, I was just saying. It’s all right, you know. To have — interests.”

Varric rolled his eyes and drained his glass. Hawke supposed they were all quite drunk by now; summer in Kirkwall had a tendency to do that to a person. She herself was feeling a little cloudy and more than a little uninhibited. Spoiling for an adventure. She felt that pull again, as if something stronger than herself was tugging her down a path with traps and pitfalls, and she was helpless to resist.

So consumed was she with her stewing that she failed to notice when Varric signalled to Tarn the page, and the page walked off to find Seneschal Bran.

* * *

Hawke was in the middle of composing a very rude limerick about dwarves and nugs with melodious accents when she noticed that Bran was standing in the centre of the room. A bard called for attention, Bran cleared his throat, and Hawke felt her soul pouring out of another person’s mouth.

“I have long served this city. Kirkwall, troubled as its past may be, is my home, and my greatest love. I have seen its champions, both great and small, and have been proud to count myself among them. It is my great pleasure, then, to announce the formalization of an alliance between two of Kirkwall’s staunchest friends. Friends, hear ye: the Viscount of Kirkwall, Varric Tethras, announces his engagement to, um, wed its Champion, Marian Hawke.”

For a second, Hawke said nothing at all. She was impressed by how well Bran pulled that off; he must have been in on the ruse, surely, or he would have spluttered much more about propriety and the right way to make such an announcement and how many times it had previously occurred in the recorded history of the Free Marches. He didn’t do any of that, so she assumed that the unsmiling Seneschal had been in on the whole thing. Smart, that Varric.

She turned to Varric, then, and made to take his hand. That hand was on her cheek, though, and a thumb was wiping at the corner of her eye. “Hawke,” he murmured. “You’re crying. Shit, is this too much? Bran did great, you have to admit. ”

She breathed in through her nose and her eyes fluttered shut. “Kiss me, you idiot. Before they think I’m horrified.”

Their first kiss. Quick and mostly chaste and part of a joke. She thought it was fitting.

* * *

The rest of the evening blurred past. They were congratulated extensively and heartily over and over again. Even Lord Kenric admitted to being moved when he thought about their story apart from his own aims. Annabel fairly crushed Hawke in a tiny but tremendous hug, and Bran expressed minimal frustration with either of them for at least the first hour.

After the dinner, and the music, and more wine, the players for the masque entered. The space that had been for dancing was arranged as a stage, and the time-honoured tradition of trying not to fall asleep during theatre was practiced by all in attendance.

Except, curiously, by Hawke. She had never cared for plays and masques, preferring a song or a tale instead. But she fixed all of her occasionally great attention on this performance, investing herself in the story of true love between an elf and a chevalier. It was apparently still quite a scandalous work in Orlais, which made her feel a bit furious and queasy; how many people had she known who had loved across similar lines? She grew increasingly agitated as it became clear that the elf would have to die for the chevalier’s character growth, and at the end of the fourth act she left the room.

Air movement was one of the privileges of Hightown. It was well after nightfall and still hot but she could smell the sea, and not just the docks. There was even a breeze. Hawke stood on a balcony and let flames dance on her fingertips. Drunk magic was seldom advised and almost universally practiced. This was measured among the smaller risks she had taken.

Bran Cavin walked out onto the balcony beside her. “My lady,” he began.

“Bran, please. It’s a bit late to start acting as though you respect me.” She crinkled her nose at him and turned back to look into the dark.

“Hawke, then. But though I’ve often, well, disagreed with your methods or demeanour, I’ve always respected you. You must know that I meant what I said tonight. I love this city with all my heart. I always have. I was terrified when they named me the provisional Viscount. I’m an excellent Seneschal, but not one bit a politician. I have no patience for— ”

“People?” Hawke interjected.”

He almost smiled. “Something like that. Regardless, I came to see if you had need of anything.”

“Either more or less wine, Bran, and for these people to let me go to bed.”

“Ahem. About that. I understand that you may want to move your belongings into the Viscount’s chambers, but I implore you to understand that it’s simply not the way of things. Couples of your stature rarely share a suite of rooms, though they may be fond of each other.”

Hawke had turned and was staring at him. She appeared to have forgotten that her hand was slightly on fire. “Beg pardon, Bran?”

“I don’t mean to be too forward or frank in these matters, but we are all adults, and if you are to be the Viscountess then you will have to learn to tolerate my council, Champion.”

“Um,” said Hawke. “But,” she continued. “Your speech? It was very good. I thought you rehearsed it.”

“No, my lady. I spoke from the heart, and for once it seems to have landed. Though I don’t see what that has to do with the issue of the bedchambers.”

“Bran,” Hawke continued. “I think I know what you could get me. You could get me Varric.”

The Seneschal — her Seneschal? Did she get some custody of him? — sketched a bow, and left.

* * *

Varric’s heart sank when Bran came to fetch him with a troubled expression. “Your betrothed has asked for your company, Viscount. She seems perturbed by some matter that she would not explain.”

It was possible that Varric hadn’t thought out this plan very carefully. It was also possible that actions had consequences and, while he was aware of how that applied to his own life, the correlation between action and consequence had never been clear when Hawke was involved. She took on the Arishok in single combat and was the victor; she showed kindness to a fellow apostate and the world came apart.

For all that he enjoyed careful planning and strategic dragging of his heels, Hawke sure brought out his rash streak. When he asked Bran to announce their ‘engagement’ he had been feeling stubborn and competitive, and compelled to prove that he had no intention of marrying any quantity of nineteen-year-olds. Hawke was his closest friend, beautiful and hilarious and dangerous, and she’d always been able to make him act like a half-grown boy to try to impress her.

Once upon a time he had exaggerated their age difference to try to hide this tendency. Despite them being separated by no more than a half-dozen years, he played the part of the worldly businessman, with her the brash young hero. He managed her accounts, took care of her estate, and told her stories.

He remembered shouldering Bianca and firing a bolt directly into the heart of Gascard DuPuis as they learned the fate of Hawke’s mother. It was neither to impress Hawke nor to care for her, but out of the simple necessity of seeing the thing done and a cold fury at what DuPuis was. He hadn’t thought that through, either, and he’d never felt he’d needed to.

Varric stepped onto the balcony, quietly as he pleased, and took in the view.

* * *

“Hawke?” Varric cleared his throat, and more quietly added “Marian?”

She turned around at last, a quizzical expression on her face until she saw him. She knew she looked nice tonight, her signature black and red put aside for blue cut through with bronze, with a nod to Kirkwall’s crimson in the laces at the back of her dress. She had known from Tarn that Varric would wear the blue he seemed to favour more and more as time went on and had dressed to match, even before they had hatched this terrible scheme.

They had both stopped talking as Varric looked her over on his balcony, under the night sky of her city. She had seen that look before, during the good old bad old days, late at night in his rooms at the Hanged Man, on a rooftop in Lowtown, beside the fire at her estate. She suddenly remembered how much it had troubled her at first. It was a thorough look, and she could see that it was extraordinarily fond.

Varric smiled, and walked to the balcony rail to stand beside her, a bottle of wine in his hand. “That colour is very nice on you.”

It was as if she had been given permission to breathe again. She chuckled and said “really? I thought you were a wordsmith.”

He made a familiar gesture, spreading his hands and shrugging his shoulders. “Should I tell you that I’ve been tongue-tied by your beauty? That being near you makes me feel small?”

“Probably not.”

“Probably not,” he nodded. “You’d just make a short joke.”

“I’d just make a short joke.”

The air got a little lighter again. “You wound me, Champion. And as much as I’ve always been willing to take a licking from a beautiful woman” and oh, that did something to her, “I think we might actually have to have a serious conversation.”

She let out a mock-horrified gasp, and went to sit on a nearby bench. So that he would know she wasn’t angry, she patted the seat beside her.

“You know you’re still terrifying even when you do that?” He sat down beside her, neither of them sprawling for once. “I mean, I’m totally over it, but another man would be quivering by now.”

Hawke didn’t say anything in reply, though Varric had counted at least three possible retorts. Instead she looked at him, and asked him very seriously: 

“Varric. Have you tricked me into marrying you?”

* * *

The thing was, he tried to explain, he hadn’t precisely tricked her into marrying him, so much as he may have tricked them both into agreeing to marry each other. What had started as an easy con a few days ago had quickly spiralled out of his control.

“It’s not as though we’ve been sober a lot lately, Hawke. It’s possible that even you and I have had our judgement impaired a little.” Her face was closed-off and evaluating.

He kept talking. Wasn’t there a time when he’d been good at talking to people, women in particular, this woman above all? He was sure there had been. “I mean, you were giving me such a hard time about the girl, too, and that whole turnip business was hilarious. We could have done more with that, pet names or something.”

She’d turned her face away and was looking back out over the city. “Yes, pet names. Fantastic idea, missed opportunity.” She took the bottle of wine from him and stood up. “The thing is, Varric, Bran thought you were quite serious. Kirkwall now thinks we are quite seriously going to get married, not to mention Starkhaven and likely most of the rest of the Free Marches. I’m just not sure how we get out of it.”

Wait, what?

“Get out of it?” He was hoarse. This was going very, very poorly.

“Surely we ought to? It would be preposterous to get married because of a joke that went too far, right?”

“Hmm.”

“And besides, you’d only courted me for a handful of days at best. I think, anyway. Officially. And most of it was about root vegetables.”

“Huh,” added Varric.

“Plus, I can’t imagine that I’d be good at being married to anyone. I leave my boots everywhere. I’m rarely dressed for the occasion. I’m just as likely to go off in search of an old friend as I am to turn the blankets down at home.” She was rolling the bottle between her palms, back and forth, back and forth. Its sides frosted over, and then the smallest flame, and then ice again.

Varric liked being a storyteller because he was good with words, but the reason that he was a storyteller was because he could see where things were going, or ought to go. That was why he called out “careful, Hawke” moments before the wine bottle cracked, and Hawke watched it fall down, into the street below.

He stood up and took her hand, and led her back to the bench. “It’s probably for the best. I want to be as sober as I possibly can when I tell you this.” She looked at him, wide-eyed and open, and he decided it was time for him to take the leap as well. “I didn’t mean to con us into an engagement, but I’m not disappointed that I did. I’m glad, actually. If I pulled it off.”

Hawke started to smile. “Do you know that only one other person has ever looked at me the way you do?”

“That’s rich. I’m not sure that anyone has ever looked at you the way I do. A decade and a half of friendship and affection and poorly repressed lust, it’s a good thing dwarves can’t do magic or I probably would have set your clothes on fire by now.” She blushed a little at his admission, genuinely blushed, and Varric felt as proud of that as he had of anything in his life.

“Why, in the name of Andraste’s pillowy bosom, have you never told me this before?”

“I’m a bad man? I’m a liar? I preferred to pin my hopes on the thing I’d wanted first, instead of the thing I wanted most?” He paused. “I don’t have a good answer for you. I’m not sure if you know this about people, but we’re pretty stupid sometimes.”

It was her turn to hum in agreement or acceptance, and then she leaned her head against him and said “turnips between our ears, most of us.”

“Is this some kind of thing with you, turnips? I might have to take back all of this honesty if this is a fetish.” He ran his fingers through her choppy hair and grinned. She rested with her head on his chest for a minute and then sat up.

“It probably won’t be easy, you know.” Hawke looked serious still. “I feel like everything that’s happened since the Blight has been forces bigger than me pulling me along after them. I’m not sure that I understand why, or what I mean when I say that — if it means anything. Maybe I just can’t be arsed to take responsibility for my own choices. But if we do this, if we get married” and he could hear the way she was weighing the words on her tongue “it could always happen again.”

“You think I don’t know that? I’ll say it again: I literally wrote the book on the crazy shit that has happened to you, that you’ve accomplished. And maybe it was one of those forces that pulled us into this. We should write to Sparkler, see if brandy counts as a force of nature.”

“You know he would say that it does.”

“I do know that, which is why I would ask. I don’t like to ask questions I don’t know the answers to.”

That was as good a time as any for an awkward silence, but he shook it off. “So — will you? Will we?”

Hawke sat up and smiled at him. “You know the answer, you smug dwarf. Of course.”

He kissed her again, then, solid and strong, his big hand cradling the back of her head and her weaving her way into his lap. They stayed there for the final act of the play, and excused themselves before their guests filed out into the night.

The next time Hawke fell it was onto a warm and welcoming bed in a set of bedchambers that were or would be hers, and there was no absence at her side that night, or for many others.


End file.
